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Trump's EPA is selling out people of color
(CNN)President Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency has abandoned environmental justice, which requires the fair treatment of all people, regardless of race or color, in the development and enforcement of environmental laws and regulation.
Its latest effort -- the so-called Affordable Clean Energy Rule, announced last Tuesday -- only exacerbates the issue by continuing to dismantle regulations designed to protect communities of color. It neglects the enforcement of the Clean Air Act (CAA), which standardizes air pollution to safe levels, and the Clean Water Act (CWA), which regulates the discharge of pollutants in American waters.
And it does this despite the EPA's own research showing how communities of color bear the brunt of dirty air and contaminated water. Urban neighborhoods, impoverished rural towns and Native American communities, in fact, face the worst toxic pollution in the nation.
The new rule also rolls back the Clean Power Plan, proposed in 2014 by then-President Barack Obama as a complement to the CAA and CWA, to cut millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions and hundreds of thousands of tons of particulate matter pollution, also known as soot and smog. That soot and smog more often impact minority and low-income communities, which likely reside in high-pollution areas.
Its latest effort -- the so-called Affordable Clean Energy Rule, announced last Tuesday -- only exacerbates the issue by continuing to dismantle regulations designed to protect communities of color. It neglects the enforcement of the Clean Air Act (CAA), which standardizes air pollution to safe levels, and the Clean Water Act (CWA), which regulates the discharge of pollutants in American waters.
And it does this despite the EPA's own research showing how communities of color bear the brunt of dirty air and contaminated water. Urban neighborhoods, impoverished rural towns and Native American communities, in fact, face the worst toxic pollution in the nation.
The new rule also rolls back the Clean Power Plan, proposed in 2014 by then-President Barack Obama as a complement to the CAA and CWA, to cut millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions and hundreds of thousands of tons of particulate matter pollution, also known as soot and smog. That soot and smog more often impact minority and low-income communities, which likely reside in high-pollution areas.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/28/opinions/trump-epa-endanger-communities-color-morrison/index.html